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Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami is an internationally prolific contemporary Japanese artist. He works in fine arts media—such as painting and sculpture—as well as what is conventionally considered commercial media —fashion, merchandise, and animation— and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts. He coined the term superflat, which describes both the aesthetic characteristics of the Japanese artistic tradition and the nature of post-war Japanese culture and society. Superflat is also used as a moniker to describe Murakami’s own artistic style and that of other Japanese artists he has influenced. Murakami is the founder and President of Kaikai Kiki Co. , Ltd. , through which he manages the careers of several younger artists and organizes the biannual art fair GEISAI.
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Takashi Murakami is often associated with and draws on manga and otaku, the ultrasophisticated Japanese subcultures of animation, comics, and technology. His work brings together such diverse elements as plastic models, cartoons, advertising balloons, Pop Art, and Conceptual Art strategies. Murakami uses this mass-media imagery and the charms of media communication to highlight the specificity and the contradictions of Japanese culture, particularly in its encounters with the West. For instance, his creation of the unique cartoon character DOB, based in part on Mickey Mouse and the Japanese cartoon character Astro Boy, comments on the “Disneyfication” of society and how the cuteness of a product is one way to guarantee its success. Murakami’s Hiropon (1997) and My Lonesome Cowboy (1998) are figurative life-size cartoon sculptures that celebrate sexual-spirituality. Art critic Dave Hickey, writing for Artforum in December 1998, compared the baroque extravagance of My Lonesome Cowboy to Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. Murakami uses popular iconography to challenge and update traditional Japanese and Western art as he explores three-dimensional representation. His work was included in the 1999 Carnegie International.